Several months ago, I wrote about Twitter spam or a variant of unwanted traffic on Twitter. Since then, it’s still not clear to me what motive these spammers have. Several weeks ago, I posted a link to the NYTimes about swine flu vaccinations. Minutes later, I received Twitter notices that I just garnered four new followers–all of them had an odd username, like a common first name followed by several numbers.

Great. While I’m all for having a large crew of loyal followers, it does no good that my followers are all bots. I actually not sure what purpose these bots serve anyway, because none of their Twitter pages link to any spam websites. As Mashable.com mentioned in their Twitter article, spam on Twitter comes in three flavors: Twittermercials, straight cons, and clueless cons.

While most of the spamming I’ve encountered are Twittermercials, the most recent iteration of spam doesn’t appear to serve much of a purpose other than harvesting data on my activity.

Fortunately, the coders at Twitter monitor these unsolicited activities often, and most of the spam accounts have been deactivated.

computing computing, tech

I ended up installing the Palm Pre SDK to test out the development kit. It includes the Palm Pre emulation engine, which runs from VirtualBox.

Although I’ve never used the physical hardware phone before, the software interface is very slick, similar to that of the iPhone. The snapshot includes the Web browser in action, which supports touch-dragging and zoom.

If I ever find the time, it would be interesting to develop some software for it.

computing computing, tech

I was excited to see a hardware refresh on Apple’s iPod Touch last week, but it’s unfortunate that the new models have technology that isn’t fully implemented, such as 802.1n draft or a camera. Moreover, the clock speed increase in the new models (600mhz) and Voice Control/microphone capabilities aren’t available in the budget 8gb model.

Simply put, that is ingenious marketing.

The new Nano includes an FM transmitter and a camera, features that the neither the classic nor the touch sport. This obviously allows Apple to advertise a wide product line and focus its tech support on specific products. The base software kernel in all of its products is similar, and allows for efficient cross-platform upgrades.

As a consumer, however, I’d want everything in my portable device. As a medical professional, I’d choose the iPod Touch/iPhone to be my technology device. Obviously, Skyscape and Epocrates, two medical software companies, have already gravitated to this platform. The hardware acceleration on the Touch allows for gaming, but also image viewing (CT/MRI). We can easily modify the iPod Touch output to a projector for presentations.  The downside of this technology? Price.

The 16gb and 32gb models are similar in pricing to full-sized netbooks or 12″ thinbooks, which can arguably “do more” than the ipods. It’s a tough sell.

Which product would you choose if you could only have one?

computing computing, tech

Some IT departments are simply bad. I have been struggling over the last few weeks to obtain login access to the computer I use in the clinic. Without access, I’m unable to view any of my patients’ medical records.

I called the helpline responsible for the computing systems (5-HELP). After several prompts and minutes of waiting, I explained to the support staff my problem. He replied, “Oh, that’s a hospital computer, you need to call 4-HELP.”

I subsequently dialed 4-HELP, and waited through a suspiciously similar system prompts. The support staff on 4-HELP explained to me that even though the computers in question were in the hospital, they were controlled by the university. Hence, I would need to dial 5-HELP for support.

I explained to him that I had already done that, and he retorted, “You’ll have to speak to you departmental administrator.” I asked my program director’s secretary what I needed to do, and she told me that she had done “everything possible to activate my accounts” (translate: I’ve done nothing). I would have to dial 5-HELP for help.

Painful.

computing, medicine computing

The other day my laptop got “wormed” while I took down my firewall to do some software patches. I had forgotten to disconnect from the Internet, and after 30 mins of patching, my computer started acting weird. Before I knew it, a gazillion pop-up windows materialized on my desktop, and the computer became non-responsive, even after reboots. This is the one of the worst things that can happen to a computer literate user. I got hacked. This is what I get for not upgrading my copy of IE 6.0.

Sadly enough, the mirrored drive on my hard drive was not accessible (boot sector was hijacked), and I did not have a second computer to link up my laptop drive to recover some files. I spent the next 3 hours installing a non-IBM version of Windows XP and hunting Thinkpad drivers online. In the process of fiddling around, I discovered that my USB ports were blown–typical USB header on the laptop gets pushed back into the motherboard after long-term use. One of the capacitors were oozing as well.

Hardware and software failure almost inevitably means a new computer. What will my next computer be? Will it be a Mac? In the meantime, my computer is still functional, albeit in a limited form.

computing computing, rant